Requiem
by smacgregor1996
Summary: Whoever said that loss gets easier with time was a liar. The Doctor knows this better than anyone. Capaldi's Doctor attends the funeral of Sarah Jane Smith.


There is a mist descending, a thick fog crushing against the trees, smothering each leaf. It spreads across the rooftops, seeps through the chimneys, fills his nostrils until he can scarcely breathe, is choking on the moisture even from behind these blue doors.  
He looks down, then in the mirror. The face that looks back - a new face, all crinkles and heavy eyebrows, topped with a head of hair peppered with grey - is trying to smile, but it is a smile full of cracks, full of lies. He knows it well, has worn it a thousand times. For Donna. For Martha. For Rose.

He brushes his suit, stares at his reflection, practices how it looks in the mirror. Tries to make it look real, just this once. Just one last time.

"And you're sure you don't want me there?"  
"Clara, I'll... I need to do this."  
"I know." A pause, brief and bittersweet. "But you don't need to do it alone."  
He shakes his head, lays down the phone, leaves it dangling from its cord. Then, footsteps. One after the other. Slow, measured. He can feel the turning of the earth under his shoes, but it feels less steady than that somehow, like something nearby is shaking.  
_It's me_, he discovers, faintly surprised.  
There are bells not too far off, church bells. He walks toward them, aching.

He stops outside the doors, pushes his hands - so old, not like last time, but so similar to how they were before, so many lives ago - against the oak. It is cold and smooth against his skin, and it surprises him. He isn't sure why, but he expected it to be warm.  
He enters the hall a few minutes late, takes a seat right at the back. The building itself is oversized, a masterpiece of architecture, and a part of him notices this, will always notice these things, but this isn't the time, isn't the place.  
Despite himself, he coughs.  
No one seems to take note.  
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees her family, her friends, all clustered around the front pew, and he thinks back to Clara, to their phone call. _You don't need to do it alone_.  
But he does. There is a burning in his skull that tells him that much. And besides, isn't this always how it ends? Isn't he always alone?

An hour or so passes. He doesn't move, is rigid in his posture, until the service finishes. He lingers in the shadows until Luke and all the others she loved, cared for, protected have slipped from the hall into the garish light of day, and then he stands. Then he is walking. Left. Right. Left. It's almost mechanical how he does it, how he forces himself forward.  
They've left the casket open. They've left the casket open and he isn't ready, isn't prepared to see her like this, his companion, his friend, _his Sarah Jane_-  
But he has to. He has to show her - though he doesn't know if it's really showing her or showing himself anymore - that he kept their promise, has to tell her he didn't forget, that he _never _could.  
He grips the pew, knuckles alabaster white.  
And looks.  
Her face, it's so... it's different, but it isn't. It's the same face, it's _her_ face, but it's pale, it's cold, it's empty.  
She isn't there.  
Of course, physically speaking, she is there, _right_ there, but really, she isn't. It's just a shell, a veil. He knows all about those. He knows all about a lot of things. Space. Time. History. Science.

But he doesn't know about death, doesn't know if there's anything beyond this, beyond these fleeting moments humans call a lifetime.  
It isn't fair. It isn't fair that he gets to start again, to take on yet another face when he's already had so many, while she lies here, unmoving, lifeless, _empty_.  
t doesn't feel real. None of it does.  
His fingers brush the edges of the coffin, moving toward her face, toward her skin. He wants to touch her, persuades himself that the smallest brush of her cheek will confirm it all for him, that if he can just have a second, the tiniest sensation, then the world will reveal to him the ultimate secret: what comes after death.  
If there is a heaven, if there is some sort of paradise (that isn't a computer program, but one that is real, is genuine and full of love), he can think of noone more deserving of admission than the woman lay before him, eyes shut.  
He touches her arm, and it near freezes him.  
He isn't sure why, but he expected it to be warm.


End file.
